


Perihelion

by incendiarydissension



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Aftermath, Gen, Post-Canon, Spoilers, this is not eiffel/lovelace and it will not BECOME eiffel/lovelace, what tag do i use. it takes place after ep 61
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 04:17:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17399912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incendiarydissension/pseuds/incendiarydissension
Summary: (noun. the point in the orbit of a celestial body at which it is closest to the sun.)"Hi, sorry, I don't remember you or any of the terrible things I did to you," is a poor apology at best. So Doug keeps that to himself, figures winging it is the best way to put this whole mess behind him. Turns out there's still a bit of that Old Doug charm somewhere inside him, and it's all anyone in Big Rock, TX seems to see.





	Perihelion

**Author's Note:**

> the rating might change to T if people say swears. idk. hey this is a journey for me too 
> 
>  
> 
> [listen to this for effect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wREczydxKE)

Goddard Futuristics provides them all with a very nice severance package. 

For Douglas Eiffel, this means absolutely nothing. 

Getting back on his feet is weird and complicated and hard. At first, he’d intended to go back to Texas as soon as he landed. Visit the old haunts. Meet up with childhood friends. Make amends for someone he’d come to know internally as Old Doug. 

It turns out that when you can’t remember your PIN, your social security number, or your banking password, that’s kind of impossible. Old Doug was a tool, but he wasn’t stupid enough to spill those on his daily logs.

Doug (new Doug, this Doug, hello) ends up crashing at Renée’s place for a while, which is even more weird and complicated and hard. After restoring her status as an alive (and righteously pissed) person, Goddard’s legal department has to figure out the logistics of compensating her for her time, trauma, and gunshot wounds, and Renée still has to figure out the logistics of coming back home to a husband that’s been mourning her for two years. 

Renée is resourceful, and so, it turns out, is Dominik. Isabel’s also there, unable to retrieve her much further expired identity. Together, she and Doug make a good pair of chauffeurs, housekeepers, dogwalkers–paying their rent via chores and odd jobs. For Isabel, the majority of the job involves fielding reporters with a steely gaze and a cutting remark. For Doug, more often than not, it means the frequent discovery of things he knows how to do, but doesn’t _know_ he knows how to do, and most certainly doesn’t _know how_ he knows how to do. Like jump-starting a truck, reassembling a remote control, or finding the blind spots in a store’s camera system. Just more small things that make him worry about what’s going to happen when he returns “home” to people who only recognize him as Old Doug. 

Doug gets set up with a new bank account as soon as he can, and the first thing he does is go out and get a new car. Well, not a new car, a very used car—but it gets the job done. Old Doug’s license was suspended at the time of his arrest, of course, but he’s conveniently been rehabilitating in outer space for four years with no further offenses, so the DMV ships a shiny new one to his old address in Texas. Then his old employee box at Goddard Futuristics. Then, after three weeks of phone calls, to his new temporary address at Renée’s place. 

He hasn’t forgotten how to drive. It seems that muscle memory and autonomous function are packed away in different parts of the noggin than the memories that Dr. Pryce judiciously snipped away. Upon his return, the specialists at Goddard had done the absolute bare minimum to doctor him, probably because bringing back all his memories would result in an even longer list of legal repercussions for them. 

Doug hasn’t seen a real neurologist yet, and he doesn’t intend to. He’s skittish around doctors; his memories of the evil Dr. No might have been purged, but his reaction upon seeing gloves and metal tables is the same. It’s chilling, the responses his brain’s learned and preprogrammed from experiences he can’t recall. 

He doesn’t know if this kind of amnesia is even possible in the normal world, where humans lose memories from blunt trauma or old age and not from having their head invaded by evil, semi-immortal women. From what he can find through WebMD and Mayo Clinic, it doesn’t seem like it is. His condition is unique, and uniquely terrifying. He feels like an empty book. Or, no, a book with all its pages torn out. A glitch in the system. 

A car honks at him and he lurches back into the present. 

I-20. Fort Worth. Right. 

He’s going 50 on a stretch of road where folks usually go over 70. 

“Sorry!” he yells out the (closed) window, and shoves his foot down on the gas. Drifting off again. Maybe the radio will wake him up. He drops a hand from the wheel and finds the scan button. 

_...kssshhht..._

_“...This is 97.5. Highs for today in the 80’s and 90’s, and be prepared for strong gusts as storms move in from...”_

_...kksshhhh..._

_“...absolutely no down payment! That’s right, folks, you heard me. Zero down payment, and you can find even better deals on our...”_

_...ksshshhh..._

_“...reports that all government funding has been withdrawn from the company, and those in charge are facing...”_

_...ssssshhhhhhhhhhhh..._

A whisper, and then the faintest strain of violins. 

The sound twists through his brain, reaching for him, as though echoing through sterile vacuum sealed halls. Reflexively, he jumps, putting a hand to his ear, almost expecting a headset to be there, and reaches for a dial that doesn’t exist.

Another car honks. He’s going 55. Doug releases a breath that could have blown the weather reporter on 97.5 away and makes himself focus on the road. He is not losing it. This is absolutely not what losing it looks like. _Okay. Calm down. The song is over._

_“That was Haydn’s 47th Symphony in G major, performed by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra....”_

_...kkksshhhhhhhhhhh..._

With one practiced motion, Doug switches the radio off. 

“Aaaaugh,” he says aloud. “I’m losing it.” 

“I’d say you did a long time ago,” says Isabel from the passenger seat. 

Doug had almost forgotten she's in the car with him. He checks his mirrors in a great show of paying attention to traffic, avoiding eye contact with her enough to hopefully make her see that he didn’t really want to talk about the—

“Radio still bugging you, huh?” 

“ _Aaaauuugh_ ,” he says again. “No. It’s fine. Just the vastly boring Americana expanse driving me up the wall.” 

He feels her eyeing him with that... captain’s gaze. He gets the sense Old Doug got to know that well. Even New Doug knows it well after seeing it trained on all the lawyers and reporters they’ve seen in the last few months. It’s significantly more uncomfortable when trained on him instead. 

“Eiffel,” she says. “How about you pull off and I drive?” 

“No, it’s fine.” His grip tightens around the steering wheel. “I’m alright.” 

He ignores and ignores and ignores the captain’s glare until it turns away from him and back towards the window. “Fine,” she says. “But pay attention to the gas pedal. We’re getting there tonight or I’ll... I don’t know what I’ll do, but it’ll involve me not being stuck in your dump of a car.” 

Doug steps on it. “Just—pick a station, okay?” 

“No can do. We’re having a real conversation now, Eiffel. Best thing to keep you focused on traffic. So.” He can sense her trying to find something to ask him that she doesn’t already know. “So... does Anne’s mom know ASL?” 

He lets a breath out through his nose. Of course _this_ is what she wants to talk about. “Probably.” 

“ _Probably_ ," she echoes, thoughtful, dangerous. "So you haven’t asked?” 

“Asked her?” He scoffs. “When would I have asked?”

“Eiffel.” Something kicks in the pitch of her voice that makes his spine tingle. “You caught up with your ex-girlfriend, didn’t you?”

“Um...” 

“You _did_ call her in advance, right? You’re not just going to show up after four years, with no memories, and ask to see your estranged daughter, right?” 

In his own voice, he thinks he hears a hint of the Old Doug (with the old tail-between-his-legs squeak) when he manages a “no?” in reply. 

“Officer Eiffel!” 

“I’m not an officer!” 

“Does it _matter_?” Isabel leans over so that he can’t possibly avoid her anymore. “Pull the hell over—pull over, Doug!” 

In sheepish assent, he flips on his turn signal and gets off at the next exit. “Fine, but you’re paying for gas.” 

The instant he pulls into the station she turns to him, arms crossed firmly like armor over her chest. The silence fumes between them for seconds. He decides to break it before she can. 

“Look, Isabel, do you know how hard it is to get the nerve up? I mean, how am I supposed to explain turning up after four years of, ha, radio silence?”

“I don’t know, but you have to do it anyway!” 

She’s right. Of course she’s right, but he can’t even imagine what he’d say to Kate. To Anne—hell, she’ll be eight years old now. Old enough to understand. Old enough to resent him. 

“I don’t even know what she looked like,” he says. “I don’t remember her face. I don’t remember naming her. I don’t remember _holding my daughter_ —” 

He puts the car in park and his face in his hands. 

Isabel isn’t good at gentleness at the best of times, but he can hear her trying. “Of course it’s going to be hard, Eiffel. But maybe it’s better this way. You’ll have a clean slate.”

“I _am_ a clean slate,” he says through his fingers. His palms smell like the faux leather steering wheel. Like motor oil. And, as always, a hint—just barely there—of ozone. 

He misses Hera. Which is silly, really, because all he knows of her is from those damn recordings and the awkward goodbyes after the ship’s landing. But Hera has that special air of calm acceptance, that displaced familiarity with human nature that extends even further than his own, and the ability to understand what a hard reboot feels like. Hera knows what it’s like to feel like a glitch. A mistake, marring the miraculous web of life. 

“Hey.” Isabel pats him on the shoulder. She probably means it to be gentle. It feels like a small gun discharging. “Go take a breather. I’ll fill the tank.” 

“Alright.” He gives in and leaves to use the rest stop toilet. 

Old Doug liked smoking, and Doug’s picked the habit back up in yet another foolish attempt to reconnect with his past. He told himself he’d quit before he went back home, but as the deadline’s approached and passed, all he’s managed to do is make it worse. Fresh Earth air is nice, but the taste of tobacco is nicer, and it does wonders to clear his head whenever he becomes too overwhelmed with... well, whatever happens to be on his mind. Isabel wrinkles her nose when he slides back into the passenger seat. 

“I can’t believe you still smoke.” 

“What can I say? Old habits die really, _really_ hard.” 

“A psychologist would have a field day with you, Eiffel.” She throws the car into third gear and speeds towards the on ramp. Isabel drives like a wrecking ball with a vendetta. Doug, meanwhile, goes back to scanning through radio stations. 

_“...más votado de la Conferencia Oeste, sino de toda la liga para el próximo...”_

_...kkkkshshhhhhh..._

_“...the Dow Jones is down three points today, while the S &P has risen by twenty...” _

_...kkksshhhhhhhh..._

_“...stalwart supporters praise the company’s dedication to a diverse portfolio of projects, while its former backers insist that the CEO’s actions are fueled not by generosity, but by...”_

_...kkshhkhhh..._

_“...don’t know about you, but I’m feeling twenty-two...”_

_...shhhhhkkkk..._

“At least we’re not on every other station anymore,” he mutters, wishing he’d invested in a cassette adapter for his phone. 

Isabel does not crack a smile. “If I had to be the spokesperson in front of one more crowd of reporters...” 

“You’d snap a neck, maybe. Or a mic.” 

“Oh, more than that. I'd bash heads.” 

They drive in silence. Doug stares at the radio dial. 

He knows Old Doug loved radio. Not because he ever said it in his logs, or wrote it in his diary or whatever. A deduction from the way he talked, maybe, the AM talk show swagger, or just a logical reason for the skills he earned by tinkering with receivers and antennae. Or maybe Doug can just feel the distant echo of it lingering in his cells. There’d been something special, for Old Doug, about sitting there, listening to people miles away have conversations, report the news, play a song, live their lives. 

Doug hasn’t figured out where that special feeling came from. 

The sun lengthens with the day, glowing orange on the sparse buildings and sparser trees—out here between towns there’s not much to be sight-seen. Isabel, grouchy from squinting into Earth’s setting star, says, “So are you going to call her or not?” 

“Huh?” Doug emerges from his highway stupor. 

“Are you. Going to. Call your. Ex-girlfriend.” 

“Oh,” he says stupidly. “I... should.” 

Her phone number is saved to his favorites— _Katie Garcia_ — in Old Doug’s brick of an iPhone 4. He presses it. It dials. 

_Katie Garcia_. Mother of his child.

He hangs up. 

“Eiffel,” says Isabel, with a hint of that _I can and will hit you over the head with something heavy_ inflection. 

He dials again. He makes it into the second ring before hanging up again. 

“ _Eiffel_.”

“Okay!” He clenches his other hand into a fist and lifts the phone to his ear. It rings. It rings. It rings. It ri—

_Click._

“What the... Doug?” 

For all the anticipation, the guilt, the avoidance, he’d almost expected the woman’s voice to strike a chord in his desolate wasteland of a memory. Of course, it doesn’t. It sounds like a stranger. He swallows. 

“Hi, Kate. I don’t know if you’ve heard the news? Uh, mission canceled, sort of. Well, the mission was aborted. By us, forcefully. The mission went up in flames. Big flames. I mean, we sort of started a space coup—” 

The line dies. Doug stares at the phone, disbelieving. Did she hang up on him? Did she _seriously_ hang up on him? 

His phone buzzes. She’s calling him back. 

“Sorry,” she says, breathless, as soon as he answers. “That was rude. I just didn’t, um, expect... when I heard your voice... I was startled. That’s all.” 

There’s a noise like a tsunami crushing a skyscraper. That’s her taking a deep breath through thousands of meters of phone lines. “You’re... back, huh? From your... space... mission? How did it go?” 

Isabel’s captain’s gaze is back on him. His neck prickles. “Like I said, space coup. It’s—it was all over the news. This big rigamarole about Goddard’s corruption and abuse of power and tax fraud and all that... stuff.”

“Huh. Well, there’s not much _news_ coming into Big Rock. You know how it is here. ” She laughs tensely. 

He... he doesn’t know how it is there. But he laughs too. Isabel’s gaze grows pricklier as she turns off the highway. 

“So, uh...” He takes a breath, says it all in one, like diving into a cold pool. “I was thinking I could come visit.”

Silence on the other end. Doug wants to jump out of the moving car. When Kate speaks again, her voice wavers. “Visit. That would be... fine.” 

Maybe if he knew her, remembered her, he could parse the tones in those words. Maybe he could tell if she was angry, afraid, resentful. He couldn’t blame her for any of that. But to him, she just sounds weary. 

“I’m not asking for—for room and board or anything,” he says. “I don’t need—well—I—”

He almost gave up on the request right then and there. But Kate was on the other end, waiting, and somewhere beyond her.... 

“I just want to see Anne.” 

Now her syllables are clipped. “Alright. But I have some terms I’d like you to follow, Doug.” 

He’d be surprised if she didn’t. 

By the time she’s done listing them, they’ve pulled into Big Rock. There’s a big sign at the entrance that says _Welcome to Big Rock, the quietest town in TX._

“Kate, I should go. We just got into town. I’ll, uh.” He presses his thumb and finger against his temples. “I’ll call you when I’m settled. We can figure out, uh... everything then.” 

“Alright,” Kate says. Strange. She doesn’t sound so tired now. “Take care, Doug. See you.” 

He puts the phone down and exhales a breath that comes from more than just his lungs. Isabel side-eyes him, caressing the gear shift with one hand and the steering wheel with the other, then checks the address on her phone. “We’re about there.” 

The town doesn’t look familiar. Doesn’t _feel_ familiar, either, not like coming home should. He opens the window. A warm breeze rolls through the car. Doug thinks of tumbleweeds and vast expanses of sand. He thinks of Mars. Then he thinks of the big, red star, glaring at him through the window of the parting Urania. Then he feels sick to his stomach.

“Wonder where the big rock is,” he mutters. 

“Quarried and smelted for minerals, probably. Hey, we’re here.” 

She pulls into the motel parking lot. It’s a wasteland on the outreaches of the town, all dust and dried-up weeds under the disappearing orange sun. The sign flashes a neon red over a decrepit letter board. 

SUNDOWN INN  
$49 / night  
FREE BREAKFA T  
A5K ABOUT OUR WI FI

Okay. Doug almost laughs. Hash browns and greasy eggs. Dented mattresses and crusty towels. This is probably as authentic an Old Doug experience as any. He goes inside to pay for a room. 

“204,” he tells Isabel. “Hey, bright side: there’s two beds.” 

“If there weren’t, you’d be sleeping on the floor,” she says sweetly. “I’ve got our bags.” 

“Oh, you don’t have to—” 

She silences him with a look. He decides being in charge of the key is enough. 

The room is cramped, but for what he paid it’s not too shabby. Gauzy curtains filter the dwindling sunlight onto two pillowy queen beds, and the thermostat only rattles a little. There’s a dusty box TV. As Isabel rummages through her suitcase, he picks up the channel guide and tries to make sense of the acronyms. NBA, CNN, HGTV. Renée and Dominik don’t have cable. He hasn’t had the opportunity to acquaint himself with—

MTV is definitely a name he’s heard on Old Doug’s logs. He punches in the channel number. A young, blonde, and heavily pregnant woman is talking blithely into a camera about her father. 

“I’m going to shower,” says Isabel. 

He pulls out his cell phone. “Hmm.” 

“Maybe get some sleep,” she says. “You’ve been driving all day.” Then she disappears into the bathroom. Pipes thunk underneath him as the water runs. 

She’s probably right, but the dread of closing his eyes without layers of screens distracting him from his thoughts keeps him staring at his phone. He tries to text Renée that they’ve made it safely and receives nothing but an error message. That’s strange. He’s got no cell service. 

He experiments a bit, holding it down towards the floor and up to the ceiling, but the bars in the left corner of the screen stay blank. Then he remembers the sign: A5K ABOUT OUR WI FI. And the slogan: the quietest town in TX. The bed groans (and so does he) as he leans back on it. “Ohh.”

There is no cell service in this motel. Because there’s no cell service in Big Rock, Texas.


End file.
